Several titles have challenged for the mantle of best visuals in a video game, and while there have been plenty of worthy contenders, very few ever attempted what Microsoft Flight Simulator did in 2020. As a successor to the seemingly forgotten Flight Simulator franchise, it offered the most realistic aircraft simulation, from commercial flights to rotorcraft, set in a massive rendition of planet Earth. You could fly almost anywhere in startling detail, thanks to a solution that utilized Microsoft Azure and photogrammetry.
The results were spectacular and only improved over time with subsequent updates. With Microsoft Simulator 2024, Asobo Studio and Xbox Game Studios have gone even further beyond. Over 100,000 square kilometers of the countryside, 150+ airports, 2000 points of interest, and more have been handcrafted, while about three trillion trees, 40,000 airports, and 1.5 billion buildings are procedurally generated. Also, for the first time in the franchise, you can step outside of your plane and explore the world on foot with 27 different biomes created.
It’s referred to as Asobo’s “digital twin” of the Earth, and based on gameplay thus far, it’s been stunning. Launch day dampened a lot of that hype with server issues and long initial loading times, which the development team more or less resolved. The question now is how Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 measures up visually. What is the performance like on PC and Xbox Series X, and how do they compare?
What’s New
Before we get into all that, it’s important to discuss what’s new and how Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 improves on its predecessor. This includes simulating the Earth in more staggering detail with machine learning. Studio co-founder and CEO Sebastian Wloch explained to Windows Central that AI is trained “with real photos and aerial photos to recognize — and other data like you know, altitude, as much information as possible — to try to guess ‘Okay, is there rocks? Are there pebbles? Is it sand? Is it Earth?’ to find the right type of ground.”
Flight Sim head Jorg Neumann also told RockPaperShotgun how the team picked out 28,000 tiles representing different aspects of the Earth – forests, deserts, and so on – to define for the machine learning system. “And then you feed that into a machine learning system, and you say ‘this type of color and this type of pattern is this’ – you feed it in, and you get everything back, you look at the results, and then you have human intervention again. You basically say: ‘Oh, okay, got this wrong.’ And then you retrain it. We did that in four different stages.” The information is then streamed to players in real time. Tools like Blackshark.ai, Microsoft Azure, and Bing Maps are still part of the sequel’s DNA, but the amount of data being streamed is higher than its predecessor (about 5 GB per hour, per Neumann).
Of course, there are plenty of other noteworthy improvements to the game’s details, from 10,000+ rigid-body surfaces for simulating various aircraft, soft body physics for balloons and cloth, new aircraft systems, a pre-flight planner with IFR charts, ETOPS planning and NOTAMS. There are also new additions to the weather system, including auroras, a new photometric lighting system, and lots of additional details like ship traffic, air traffic, and wildlife roaming the lands and seas. It’s a lot to take in and make no mistake, you’re going to need some pretty powerful hardware.
PC Settings and Test Bench
PC was our platform of choice to experience Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, with our test bench consisting of an AMD Ryzen 5950x, a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and 32 GB of RAM. It’s well above the recommended GPU and CPU, specifically an RTX 2080 and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, but below the ideal requirements, which demand an RTX 4080, a Ryzen 9 7900X and 64 GB of RAM. Also, as a side note, you need a decent internet connection to stream its extensive amount of assets, ranging from 10 Mbps at the minimum and 50 Mbps for recommended to 100 Mbps at the ideal settings, so keep that in mind.
We played the game at 4K, setting DLSS to Quality Mode. For anti-aliasing, Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution was chosen with almost all settings – like off-screen terrain caching, texture resolution, ambient occlusion, raymarched reflections, procedurally generated building quality, trees, plants, rocks, etc. – set to Ultra. Terrain and object level of detail, which determine how good the terrain and other objects look, are set to 200. Windshield effects, which influence the quality of rain effects and reflections on the windshield, were set to Medium, while glass cockpit refresh rate is at High for aircraft that support the same.
PC Performance
Based on how much was going on in a scene for PC, performance ranged from 30 to 45 frames per second. The problem is the stuttering causing sudden dips in the frame rate out of nowhere, and it feels jarring. It also feels odd when suddenly loading to and from maps – like there’s a sudden drop in frame rate, and everything slowly stabilizes. The development team ironed out problems preventing many from logging in, so this may be due to hardware constraints. Regardless, some optimization would go a long way on PC, but with everything considered, the numbers aren’t too shabby considering our settings.
Xbox Series X Performance
On the Xbox Series X, the story is quite different. It targets 4K resolution and 30 frames per second – there are no modes to choose from. Though we spent minimal time with the console version compared to PC, the frame rate felt pretty stable at 30 FPS with a few minor drops, less stuttering, and even fewer of the previously mentioned map issues. The overall visual fidelity is also good, so if you’re not confident in your PC handling the title, the Xbox Series X is a viable alternative.
PC vs. Xbox Series X
Though the PC version is superior in draw distance, it’s incredible how well the Xbox Series X measures up. Both versions show some pop-in, as seen in the reflections of the Golden Gate Bridge in the water as the player draws closer, which looks even odder as you get closer. You can also clearly see some minor details, from buildings and a bit of their shadows to definitions on hill ranges, loading in at close range. It’s all noticeable if you look hard enough, though, at times, it can get even more egregious, with entire mountains worth of textures suddenly popping in. Whether this is a hardware or streaming issue is unknown.
Nevertheless, the sheer amount of detail and high-resolution textures on the terrain, coupled with traffic, water quality, and reflections, is impossible to deny. The planes are also good-looking, with light naturally casting shadows in gorgeous ways. However, you might notice finer shadows from smaller parts blinking in and out with distracting clarity on Xbox Series X. Performance is more stable on the console, with fewer frame drops. Interestingly, when going from cityscapes teeming with buildings, traffic, water, reflections and a variety of vegetation to less busy terrain and more flat terrain, the PC version’s performance becomes more stable and seamless.
When comparing cockpits, both versions look very good, capturing the sheer detail of the instruments and their performance with stunning realism. When looking outside the windows, the PC version slightly wins out. Both feature accurate lens flares against the glass and little bits of dust and snow, which can even smudge. The latter looks slightly better on PC alongside the reflections of the dashboard, but both versions still offer an insane amount of detail from the cockpit.
Another side note: The character models leave something to be desired. They’re fairly insignificant compared to the real meat of the game, but it’s still worth mentioning since you’ll see your avatar a lot in post-mission screens and interacting with NPCs during Career Mode.
Conclusion
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is an incredible-looking game and a significant step up from its 2020 predecessor. Even with hardware that falls well below the ideal specifications, it delivers decent performance at 4K with Ultra settings and DLSS Quality enabled. Some more work needs to be done with the optimization. The biggest issue right now is the loading in and out of maps, which shuffles along at an uncomfortable rate. Of course, this is only the beginning, and with such a strong base to work off of, the experience will only improve over time.
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